Ghost of an Enchantment Read online

  Why? She stepped closer, their bodies almost touching, the heat of him complimenting his vibrations. What was it about him that made his energy so potent? She closed her eyes and inhaled. A citrusy spice filled her head. Was it his laundry detergent? Cologne? How could her body be on fire after three seconds of standing next to him?

  “What are you doing?”

  Her eyes flew open. “What?” she asked, blinking over and over again to clear her head.

  He’d turned his body toward her, his brows lowered over copper eyes. “Are you smelling me?”

  If she’d thought his energy potent from behind, it was nothing compared to the full force of his gaze. Sun-kissed skin and high cheek bones framed his perceptive gaze, while his rough stubble gave him a slightly rugged appearance. His dark green button up shirt was rolled up past his elbows, revealing corded forearms that made her mouth water.

  The middle-aged guy beside him peeked around his shoulder, one eyebrow raised.

  She realized then she should probably say something. “Um…” She turned to Cole, who stared at her with his head tipped to the side.

  “A lager and a cola, please,” she blurted.

  Cole straightened, nodded, and got to work fixing her drinks. Stella let out a breath, hoping that was the end of the awkwardness created solely by her not thinking through a random trip to the bar.

  “So, were you smelling me?”

  And her hopes were dashed. She flicked her gaze up to the stranger’s face. His eyes twinkled at her, and Stella felt her own smile emerging. “That would be silly, wouldn’t it?” she said, trying to strike a casual pose against the empty stool beside him despite the fact she had been smelling him.

  “Lucas,” he said, sticking out his hand.

  She stared at his fingers, strong and sure. What would it be like to touch a man who gave off such remarkable energy? After hesitating so long he began to drop his hand, Stella abruptly grabbed it.

  Lightning shot up her arm so fast it was like he had a hand buzzer hidden there. His face changed from smiling to serious in under a second, and she knew she wasn’t doing any better. They both dropped hands at the same time. Her heart pounded hard and fast in her throat, her eyes locked with his. What the hell?

  Cole set the drinks on the bar top, clearing his throat to grab her attention.

  “Thanks,” she said, grabbing the drinks and trying to ignore the man beside her, whose energy still made her buzz. How was he doing it? How was he making her every nerve ending tingle? Trying to keep her cool, she gave him one nod, and turned back to her table.

  “I didn’t get your name,” Lucas said, stalling her.

  She glanced over her shoulder, taking in his facial features one more time. “Stella,” she replied, trying to keep her voice even, then continued to the booth where Aubrey waited, her eyebrows raised under her bangs.

  “What was that all about?” her friend asked when she slid her drink to her.

  Stella barely restrained herself from taking another peek at him over her shoulder. Had he watched her as she walked back to the table? It felt like he had.

  “Oh, yeah. He’s definitely watching you,” Aubrey confirmed without her needing to ask.

  She felt his eyes on her. This was silly. She needed to get herself under control. Stella closed her eyes and redid the dampening spell. When she opened them, she could breathe easier. “Tell me when he stops looking.”

  “Sure,” Aubrey said, taking a sip from her new drink. “Are you going to tell me what happened there?”

  Stella didn’t know where to begin and shook her head. “Maybe tomorrow when I can think everything through with a clear head.” She took a swig of her new beer, abandoning the old one. “You were supposed to tell me when he stops looking.”

  “He hasn’t stopped looking yet.”

  Throat working, she swallowed hard. She had to see for herself. A glance over her shoulder revealed that sure enough, Lucas watched her, a frown wrinkling his brow—which transformed into an easy smile the second her eyes met his.

  She whipped her head back to Aubrey. This was too much. Her dampening spell weakened at an alarming rate. Lucas’s energy and the energy of the pendant around her neck competed for her attention, and every other energy vibration from every other person in the bar pulled and slapped at her in a way that made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end.

  She took a deep breath, needing to regain control. “I might be ready to head home. I’ve had enough of people for the night.”

  “Sure. No problem.” Aubrey frowned but knew her well enough not to force her to stay in a crowded room. “Want to call a tow truck for your car?”

  A long breath escaped Stella. She’d already forgotten and didn’t really want to deal with it right now. She wanted to go home, have a salt bath to cleanse herself from everyone’s energy, and go to bed. “I’ll call one in the morning.”

  The next time a waitress came by, they paid their tab. Leaving their unfinished drinks on the table, they headed out. As they neared the doors, Stella couldn’t resist once last look over her shoulder.

  Lucas still watched her, his smile creating a dimple in his right cheek. Her stomach did little flips. She turned away quickly and inhaled a deep breath when they stepped into the night air.

  She might have left the competing energies of the people inside the bar, but the unease she’d had earlier returned. Was someone waiting for her outside? Watching her? She scanned the sidewalk up and down, but there was no one around.

  Aubrey glanced down the street. “Where did your car die?” The rain had stopped, leaving large puddles, cars making splashing sounds as they hit them.

  “This way,” Stella said, cocking her head to the right. “Where did you park?”

  “Same way,” came the quick reply.

  As they walked side by side, Stella’s unease slowly unfurled, and once her car was in sight, she squinted at it. The lights were on. Everything had been dead when she left it. When she realized the car was running, she stopped in her tracks, her heart leaping in her throat.

  “I thought you said your car died,” Aubrey said, pausing beside her.

  “It did.”

  “It looks like its running.”

  “It does.” Stella kept walking toward it. It wasn’t an apparition. It looked like her car had fixed itself. She stood there staring at it for long minutes. “I don’t understand this.” The key wasn’t even in the ignition. It was in her purse.

  “What’s there to understand? Now you don’t have to call a tow truck and now you won’t have a repair bill to pay.”

  Stella blinked. “I guess.” But could she trust Bessie after this? Maybe it would be a good idea to get a mechanic to check it over anyway. Maybe Zack, one of the paranormal investigators she worked with on a regular basis, would take a look? She knew he was handy with cars.

  “Okay, I’ll follow you home just in case it acts up again,” Aubrey said, jogging to her blue Civic across the street.

  “Good thinking,” Stella agreed, unlocking her door. The car kept running, purring, like it normally did. Was her baby turning into a high maintenance vehicle because of its age?

  Sinking into the comfort of her bucket seat, she closed the door and put her key in the ignition just to be safe. This had been one weird day. And she was kind of used to weird days, so that said a lot. She touched the pendant at her heart, liking the zing it gave her fingertips.

  She closed her eyes and exhaled one slow breath. Things are going to be okay, even if I should consider renaming Bessie to Veronica.

  2

  If the day got any weirder, he’d need a vacation. Not that Lucas hadn’t had weird days before. Wickwood seemed plagued with them most of the time, but today placed in the top three.

  Mrs. Nora Brown from the library had called him first thing when he’d arrived at work. She’d had a break-in and said he needed to get there right away. Except, when he’d arrived, there was no evidence of a break-in. Nothing ha
d been stolen, nothing had been broken, no locks forced. When he and his partner Joe questioned her further, she admitted it had been just a feeling when she’d opened the library, but swore someone had been inside that shouldn’t have been.

  Lucas had to warn her against misusing police resources. Again.

  The next call came in not long after. Since they’d been in the area, they’d looked into a reported break-in at an herbalist’s store. Except, when he and Joe arrived, there was no evidence of a break-in. Nothing was stolen, no locks or windows broken. The French woman admitted it had been just a feeling, but would put money on the fact that someone had been in the building who wasn’t supposed to be.

  Lucas’s sense of déjà vu had started kicking in at that point.

  While Joe had remained at the station, Lucas took a third call at an antique store. The woman working there had seemed familiar somehow, but Lucas couldn’t place her, and her name hadn’t rung any bells. And when she apologized profusely for calling them, saying it probably wasn’t anything at all, she admitted she’d thought someone had broken in, but had no evidence of the fact. She’d said it had taken her most of the morning to convince herself it hadn’t happened. Then she called the police, realizing she really did think it had happened and wasn’t sure what to do about it. And of course, it had been just a feeling.

  He didn’t know why, but the whole time he’d been talking to her, Lucas kept thinking of the woman he’d met at the bar a week ago. Stella. There hadn’t been a day since that her face hadn’t appeared in his mind, the memory of her scent—something both herbal and floral—making him inhale in an attempt to recapture the moment.

  There’d just been something about her, something about the way her caramel eyes had stared at him like she could see right into him, about the way her blonde hair had glowed in the low-light of the bar. He hadn’t been able to get her out of his head.

  It had taken a lot of effort to keep his focus on the call as he took a walk-through of the sunny antique store, giving the owner pointers on where she could amp up her security. Beyond that, there was little he could do. Nothing had been stolen she could see, and she seemed to know every piece in the store. There also hadn’t been evidence of a forced entry on any of the doors or windows.

  And now a fourth, similar call at Langport Financial. Why would he get four almost identical calls without a thing to substantiate their claims?

  He stood with his pen poised above his notebook and stared at the security guard who kept scratching the top of his head like an idea might pop out of there at any second. “Can you repeat that?” Lucas asked, conscious of his partner Joe standing right beside him, nose scrunched up like he’d smelled something bad.

  “I’m not sure why I called you in the first place,” Lawrence, the security guard, said. The Langport Financial logo was stamped under his name, and his uniform looked freshly ironed. “I thought someone had broken in, but really there’s no evidence. And when I called the big boss man after I called the police, well, he got right pissed off, so I guess I just wasted your time.”

  “No evidence,” Lucas repeated, his sense of déjà vu slapping him upside the head as he exchanged a glance with Joe.

  They stood in the unfinished lobby of the financial building going up in the middle of the new downtown. For the past year and a half, the developers had been erecting the thirty-floor structure. Joe moved away from him, inspecting the site, his eyes scanning the second floor where it overlooked the first.

  Scaffolding towered on either side of the curved central desk hidden by a layer of plastic. A fine white dust covered everything. The powdery scent of drywall hung in the air, and a mountain of tile boxes sat stacked in the middle of the concrete floor. Yellow tape spanned the width of the two elevators at the back of the two-story space, with “do not cross” stamped across it. Strange, the security guard was the only one present, no workers in sight.

  He glanced down at the empty page on the notebook, then back at the security guard. “Well, since we’re here, why don’t you walk us through it anyway. What made you think you should call the police?”

  “I don’t know. Can’t really put my finger on it,” Lawrence said, scratching his head again. “Maybe you could dust for prints?”

  Across the room, Joe snorted as he lifted the cardboard flap on one of the open boxes of tile.

  Lucas returned his attention to the security guard. “I’m sorry, we can’t oblige. This is a construction zone. The chance of getting prints that aren’t the work crew are slim to none, and you don’t have an actual crime to report.”

  “Right,” he said, scratching his head again.

  Joe moved around the stack of boxed tile, frowning, then peering closer at something behind it. The boxes were stamped with the words Himalayan Porcelain across the middle, but when Lucas raised his eyebrows at his partner, Joe merely shook his head, stepping away from the stack. “When were those boxes delivered?” he asked Lawrence.

  “Yesterday,” he replied.

  Lucas would have taken a look himself, but the two-way radio on his hip crackled to life—a call from dispatch. What were the odds it would be someone with a break-in that hadn’t happened?

  Today? Seemed like pretty good odds. He clicked the mic on his shoulder to speak. “This is three-twenty-five. Over.”

  “We have a noise complaint at 623 Willowpark Lane,” said the voice in his earpiece. “Looks like you two are the closest.”

  Lucas met Joe’s eyes. “Ten-four. We’re en route.” Most of the time, noise disturbances turned out to be nothing, but since it was daytime it could be a domestic violence situation. Which meant they should get there as fast as possible.

  He gave the security guard his card. “If you discover anything missing, let me know.”

  “For sure. Sorry to waste your time.”

  Joe was already out the front door and heading to their car.

  “What were you staring at in there?” Lucas asked as he unlocked the car with his key fob.

  As he climbed into the police cruiser, Joe answered with a question of his own. “Do you know why you’d need cases of black salt at a construction site?”

  Staring up at the tall building a moment, Lucas pulled away from the curb into light traffic. “Nope. No clue.”

  3

  With the early evening sun warming her little car from the inside out, Stella signaled and turned into the lane for the ATM drive through. She wanted enough cash on hand for a trip to see Nana today, then again tomorrow. She tried to see Nana every day, but with Cedar Ridge being an hour away, she sometimes didn’t make it there. It killed her every time she missed a day.

  A white truck sped across traffic, tires squealing as it cut in front of her. Stella slammed on her brakes to keep from hitting them, letting out a slow breath as she watched the truck take her spot in the drive-through lane behind one other vehicle.

  “I beg your pardon,” she muttered, heart thundering in her chest at the near miss. Obviously, they were in more of a hurry than her.

  Turning in behind them, she absently touched the pendant at her heart when she rolled to a stop. Anytime she had her feathers ruffled for whatever reason, she found it calmed her to touch the iridescent orb, to absorb its positive energy into her fingertips. A lovely gift, even if her birthday wasn’t for another week.

  She leaned back in her seat and waited, trying not to dwell on the fact that another client had canceled their contract this morning. What was going on? These were clients she’d had for years, and they up and left her in a big clump. There would be other clients, and her consulting job should cover her bills for now, but she couldn’t help but be troubled by the recent exodus. No one would give her a good explanation of why they’d left.

  The white truck pulled up to the ATM. Drumming her fingers on her steering wheel, Stella watched as the man punched in his numbers.

  Taking another deep breath, she let Wickwood’s energy center her. She wasn’t sure what it was about thi
s city that calmed her. Other places she’d been to didn’t feel the same, didn’t feel right. Wickwood’s energy flowed, steady like water. It might have something to do with the river bisecting the land.

  A jaunty tune came from her cell phone lying beside her on the passenger seat. Aubrey’s picture popped up on the screen. Stella had already checked in with Aubrey this afternoon, but since the man in the white truck was still messing with the ATM, she took the call.

  “What’s up?”

  “Oh, hey, Stella,” Aubrey said, her voice thin. “Sorry to bother you. Are you able to come back home right now? I’m having a bit of a problem.”

  Her friend’s tone had the hair on the back of Stella’s neck standing on end. “What sort of problem?” She glanced at the clock. Five thirty. Aubrey closed the store at five on Saturdays, which meant she hadn’t been home long before making the call.

  “Oh, you know. Just a problem you’ll probably need to see to believe.” Her voice went high, edged with panic.

  “Okay,” Stella said, worry spiking through her. “I’m stuck in the ATM drive through. I’ll be there in maybe fifteen minutes?”

  “Oh, good. Thank you. I’ll wait for you here.” The call disconnected.

  Stella tossed the phone on her seat, unnerved by Aubrey’s shaky voice, then glared at the truck in front of her. It seemed to be taking a long time to extract cash. Stella’s eyebrows shot up when the man hit the ATM with his fist, yelling at the machine, then drove off with a squeal of tires. Had his card been eaten? Whatever the reason, after being rude and almost causing a collision, he kind of deserved it.

  With a mental shrug, she pulled up to the ATM and hurriedly took out the cash she’d need for the rest of the weekend. Stuffing her cash in her wallet, she pulled out of the bank lot and headed toward home. What had happened to spook Aubrey? Bessie rocketed through one yellow light when she pressed the accelerator, then another. Stella arrived at their house in record time.